What a treat to be running again at another beautifully maintained National Trust property with today’s parkrun at Wimpole Estate, Cambridgeshire that magnificent hall is surrounded by 3000 acres of park and farmland!!!

History

The Chicheley family owned Wimpole estate for some 250 from 1428 onwards and between 1640-1650 Thomas Chicheley built the beautiful hall that you can see today!

The house after 1686 then went through a number of wealthy families until 1976 when the then Elsie Bambridge left Wimpole Estate in her will to the National Trust that still run it today.

National trust

I would like to heap a great deal of praise on the National Trust who do an outstanding job in persevering these historical estates and allowing parkrun UK to open events to share in the beauty of running around these magnificent parkland estates!

Congratulations

The main purpose of my visit to Wimpole was to help celebrate with my very good tourist friend the lovely Christine Imbert who run her 250 milestone parkrun on Saturday, outstanding effort Christine!

For the record the cake and company made for a very lovely morning. Great to meet Christine’s friends Pippa White & the TV (Tame Volunteer), Alison Symonds-Tayler, Miriam Jorna, Dennis Lancaster, Lindsay Middleton.

parkrun World Tourists

Special mention to another one of Christine’s friends who also attended Cass Castleton (pictured below in blue cap) who is a parkrun tourist legend, founder of the Facebook parkrun Word tourist Group and holder of so many records it makes me giddy just thinking about them all!

If you fancy qualifying to become a member of the world tourist group you will have to complete a parkrun in least 4 separate parkrun countries 🙂

He also brings cakes for all the Hi-Vis volunteers at each parkrun event to enjoy afterwards, great touch Cass!!!!

Happy Birthday

Finally on the mention of celebrations big well done to local park runner Maggie (lady in red top) who celebrated her 50th birthday parkrun on Saturday!

Happy belated birthday Maggie and I hope you enjoyed your run 🙂

Course

Beautiful single clockwise 5k lap around Wimpole Estate that is undulating in design and is almost entirely run on grassland!

Dog Loop

A first for me on my tours, never seen a separate start line for park runners running with their dog’s that is about 200metres ahead of the main field, simultaneously start with the main field, they then run a extra dog loop just after about 1km for them to make up the 5K distance 👍🏻

Great idea to split the start locations as this event regularly gets over 400 runners every week!

Other points to note

• The main climb is about the 2km point with a steady rise followed by a right turn with a steep short incline to the top of the hill
• This event state trail shoes is best to run in at Wimpole but in dry weather normal trainers will be fine
• The grass paths are a little bit uneven, so just keep an eye on the route ahead
• After either prolonged wet weather or in the winter months they revert back to their multi lap winter course that is run around the flat part of the estate!
• Finally there maybe cattle on the course, so just to be weary around them

So, Wimpole Estate course is a beautiful single lap course that challenges your fitness, but is 100% well worth the effort to complete just for the views alone!

My time was 43:13

Facilities

There is paid meter parking at Wimpole Estate with a flat £2 day charge but is free though for all National Trust members Sat Nav SG8 0BW. Toilets are available at the back of the stable block near the car park!

For the post run coffee, you have a choice between a mobile cafe run by the estate next to the finish or if you want to sit down with your hot drink and food the is always the lovely Old Rectory Restaurant that opens its doors from 9am!

There is so much extra things to do at Wimpole after parkrun you could easily spend the rest of the day they’re just exploring!

Final verdict

I would like to thank this week’s run director Christian and his team of volunteers for making us all in our group feel extremely welcome on our visit, top work guys!!

So, if you are looking for a stunning single lap event to attend then Wimpole Estate has to be high on your parkrun tourist list, you have all been told!!!!!

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner